Lake Charles-born Lucinda Williams has written some of the loveliest contemporary songs there are about her home state. During a two-night stand last September at Tipitina's, she played a lot of them, including the rollicking and tender "Crescent City," and the soft, sad "Lake Charles" and "Bus to Baton Rouge." On the gig's second night, celebrating her induction into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, she turned some back pages of boot-state music, covering Memphis Minnie, Fats Domino and Hank Williams' "Jambalaya."

That tour was to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her self-titled, 1988 album, which has since been remastered and reissued as an expanded, two-disc package with new liner notes, photos and previously unavailable live recordings.

"Lucinda Williams" itself was unavailable for a while, in fact. Before the reissue, it had been out of print for a decade. It was originally released on the United Kingdom indie label Rough Trade -- a quirky spot for a country rock-project, home as it was to punks like Stiff Little Fingers and the Fall. And, in the late '80s, a record by an unestablished singer-songwriter, a little too gritty and hard-rocking for the country music world and too rootsy for mainstream rock 'n' roll wasn't a hot commodity at the outset. (Writers who pay attention to such things have pointed at "Lucinda Williams" as a key moment in the development of alt-country, or what's now more commonly called Americana.)

Tough, earthy, poetic and intimate, the songs have stood the test of time and then some, and Williams has rightly become an icon of American roots songwriting.

Lucinda Williams is coming back to Louisiana for the second time in less than a year, with a gig at the House of Blues Tuesday, May 20. The Kenneth Brian Band, who joined her at Tip's last year as well, opens. Doors at 7 p.m.; tickets $34.